The Plan
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Fatherknowsbest
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- Sep 19, 2003
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I am SO fired oh....no it's tired of hearing about Gangwal and what a great guy he is.
Who came up with the bright idea of spending 1.5 Billion $ to repurchase Company stock so that HIS stock options wouldn't be under water?
Rakesh!!!!
Who wouldn't hedge fuel back in 1999 when fuel was at a 10 year low?
Rakesh again!!!!!!!
These 2 moves alone cost us over $2 Billion that we couldn't afford not to have.
When times are good you set the money aside for tough times!
Rakesh didn't...............and then to tell everyone that "Their is no Plan B because we are singularly focused on the Merger with United".
I don't like to hear all this "selective momory" stuff......enough!
Who came up with the bright idea of spending 1.5 Billion $ to repurchase Company stock so that HIS stock options wouldn't be under water?
Rakesh!!!!
Who wouldn't hedge fuel back in 1999 when fuel was at a 10 year low?
Rakesh again!!!!!!!
These 2 moves alone cost us over $2 Billion that we couldn't afford not to have.
When times are good you set the money aside for tough times!
Rakesh didn't...............and then to tell everyone that "Their is no Plan B because we are singularly focused on the Merger with United".
I don't like to hear all this "selective momory" stuff......enough!
OP
seeking the truth
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- Oct 31, 2003
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Father knows best,
I respect your dislike of the man and your opinion. I've asked myself the same question over the hedging of fuel in the past. Especially when the price of a barrel of crude dropped to the $10 range if my memory serves me correctly in 97 0r 98. A greatly missed oppurtunity at that time !! On the issue of the stock buyback in hindsight bad move agreed. To put the blame on Gangwal solely if at all without all the facts I can't honestly answer that. Typically the board of directors vote on wether to buy back the stock of the company. It's a way of artificially boosting stock price because there are fewer shares to divide net earnings buy. Again , could it have been Wolf who did take some of of those options pumping the stock price up, I don't know ??
Will management heed or continue to bleed ????
I respect your dislike of the man and your opinion. I've asked myself the same question over the hedging of fuel in the past. Especially when the price of a barrel of crude dropped to the $10 range if my memory serves me correctly in 97 0r 98. A greatly missed oppurtunity at that time !! On the issue of the stock buyback in hindsight bad move agreed. To put the blame on Gangwal solely if at all without all the facts I can't honestly answer that. Typically the board of directors vote on wether to buy back the stock of the company. It's a way of artificially boosting stock price because there are fewer shares to divide net earnings buy. Again , could it have been Wolf who did take some of of those options pumping the stock price up, I don't know ??
Will management heed or continue to bleed ????
usfliboi
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
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Pit I could tell you the path he is on along with bronner and the board but you wont hear it. Its that simple . We can agree to disagree Youll spell out what u dont like about him and what he has done wrong. The bottom line is our major inverstors do think he is on rt track as well as the board. So untill they feel differently all we do is complain... Plain simple
Finish or Ignore
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- Aug 30, 2002
- 342
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Seeking the truth and Pittbull
The tools in the Wolf/Gangwal bag were fear and oppression. The
Regionals and city managers were shaking in their boots. It is a fact.
Those tactics will get desired results for a measured amount of time.
W & G walked hand in hand for many years. They were a team.
They made many hard calculating decisions together. Many of your
post's appear to be thoughtful and articulate. When you portray
Wolf as the evil monster and Gangwal as the innocent walking through
the flower garden, it takes credibility away from your posts.
The tools in the Wolf/Gangwal bag were fear and oppression. The
Regionals and city managers were shaking in their boots. It is a fact.
Those tactics will get desired results for a measured amount of time.
W & G walked hand in hand for many years. They were a team.
They made many hard calculating decisions together. Many of your
post's appear to be thoughtful and articulate. When you portray
Wolf as the evil monster and Gangwal as the innocent walking through
the flower garden, it takes credibility away from your posts.
Seeking,
It sounds like you and I are absolutely on the same page on most issue and I enjoy our rational and tought-out debate True that TPG and RSA were dealing with the same economics. However, two issues come into play, each parties interpretation of the economic data and their reaction to it. For instance, say you and I look at the same $100,000 house on Saturday morning. The house is in average shape, on an average street, and priced maybe 5% below market. We are in an economic downturn and several recent world events make short-term recovery uncertain. Interest rates are good and there is no indication they will rise in the near future, and housing prices have been rising consistently at 5%. Now, you might say "housing prices will probably begin falling for a couple of years because of economic uncertainty" and not want to take a chance, so you pass it up. I, on the other hand, consider the low interest rate, housing price increases, below-market pricing of this house, and the fact that my family needs a place to live and I will enjoy a healthy tax deduction and hopefully short-term capital gains. Who was right and who was wrong. Both of us and neither of us, really. We just made the decision we felt was right given the information we had and, in my case, emotion. I think these issues were in play with TPG and RSA. Clearly, however, TPG had experience that affected their decision and Bronner had money that affected his, as well as, I believe, a desire (see my "billionaire" remark above) to own an airline (your "ego" remark is dead-on). Another issue that may have played into this, didn't RSA hold leases on U aircraft pre-BK? Part of his desire to buy U may have stemmed from wanting to control some of the inevitable losses from the inevitable bankruptcy and recoup some of those losses in a backended way. In any event I don't know his motivation but as I said I believe he is in way over his head and I believe he did a disservice to a lot of people by investing in U and gaining control of the board. Certianly, he did a disservice to the employees of U who have invested their lives into this airline. He did a disservice as well to the public employees in Alabama, I believe, by investing so heavily in a compay which will prove to be a horrible investment. This didn't have to be the case, but the disservice stems from his RUNNING of the airline, not his investment in it.
I agree with your comments on leadership and management, but I think even the term "management" is being too gracious to our incumbents. To me, that implies that they know what they are doing.
As for Gangwal, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. It was Gangwal who summarilly terminated 478 probationary flight attendants in the wake of 9/11 because it was cheaper than furloghing them. I don't call that integrity. It was Gangwal who in a phone conference with Wall Street analysts indicated that the company was using the events of 9/11 to reduce staffing levels and it was those events that allowed the company to do so. Again, integrity issue here. In 20 minutes, you can walk from U headquarters to the very spot a plane went into the Pentagon... this was a hometown thing... both CCY and the Pentagon are in Arlington. To use the catastrophic events in such a way is reprehensible to me. I am well aware that Wolf by and large called the shots, but Gangwal did have some say and Wolf allowed him that... not so much at other airlines but at U he did. Wolf listend to Gangwal. During the merger, Gangwal could have said "you deal with the merger and I'll run the airline and come up with plans B, C, and D." That was a serious (and perhaps fatal) disconnect in my view. They were both in on the merger and they both stood to realize a windfall with its success. They were both blind to other events within the comapny, within the route structure, and within the industry.
Gangwal also had a way of saying the wrong things to the wrong people (see my Wall Street analyst comment above) and it getting him into trouble. And even if Wolf were calling all the shots, I am reminded of a situation I was in many years ago. I accepted a job in a city I very much wanted to live, and as it turned out, I was being asked (actually told) to do some things I didn't agree with, some of which bordered on illegal and definitely unethical (lying is unethical in my view, but it went way beyond that... cheating people). I was losing sleep and my diet pretty much consisted of Tums. One day my mother called me at my office and we were talking and I started conveying my frustration over the situation and telling her some of the things I had done that I wasn't proud of. There was a pause and she said in a very low voice, "you know, your Father and I raised you better than that." That was an epiphany in my life. To keep on doing what I had been doing would be a slap in their faces because they raised me to have integrity and honesty and decency. I hung up the phone, cleaned out my office, and moved back to my hometown the next day.
You see, just because your superiors tell you to do something unethical doesn't mean you have to do it. You have choices. You can say, "I don't lie" and "I don't cheat" and "I treat people with dignity and respect." You may be out of a job but your integrity is intact. My integrety suffered a setback, but I learned from it. However, I think that was Gangwal's disconnect, and to a much, much, much larger degree is Siegel's disconnect. I don't believe Siegel set out to do things in the way he has but there is no escaping that he has done them whether they are his doing or Bronners. Gangwal could have cleaned out his office (and ultimately he did, but it was my understanding that he was pretty much shown the door by Wolf after his Wall Street comments). Siegel could have cleaned out his office.
Other than that, I agree with you almost completely.
Regards,
DCAflyer
It sounds like you and I are absolutely on the same page on most issue and I enjoy our rational and tought-out debate True that TPG and RSA were dealing with the same economics. However, two issues come into play, each parties interpretation of the economic data and their reaction to it. For instance, say you and I look at the same $100,000 house on Saturday morning. The house is in average shape, on an average street, and priced maybe 5% below market. We are in an economic downturn and several recent world events make short-term recovery uncertain. Interest rates are good and there is no indication they will rise in the near future, and housing prices have been rising consistently at 5%. Now, you might say "housing prices will probably begin falling for a couple of years because of economic uncertainty" and not want to take a chance, so you pass it up. I, on the other hand, consider the low interest rate, housing price increases, below-market pricing of this house, and the fact that my family needs a place to live and I will enjoy a healthy tax deduction and hopefully short-term capital gains. Who was right and who was wrong. Both of us and neither of us, really. We just made the decision we felt was right given the information we had and, in my case, emotion. I think these issues were in play with TPG and RSA. Clearly, however, TPG had experience that affected their decision and Bronner had money that affected his, as well as, I believe, a desire (see my "billionaire" remark above) to own an airline (your "ego" remark is dead-on). Another issue that may have played into this, didn't RSA hold leases on U aircraft pre-BK? Part of his desire to buy U may have stemmed from wanting to control some of the inevitable losses from the inevitable bankruptcy and recoup some of those losses in a backended way. In any event I don't know his motivation but as I said I believe he is in way over his head and I believe he did a disservice to a lot of people by investing in U and gaining control of the board. Certianly, he did a disservice to the employees of U who have invested their lives into this airline. He did a disservice as well to the public employees in Alabama, I believe, by investing so heavily in a compay which will prove to be a horrible investment. This didn't have to be the case, but the disservice stems from his RUNNING of the airline, not his investment in it.
I agree with your comments on leadership and management, but I think even the term "management" is being too gracious to our incumbents. To me, that implies that they know what they are doing.
As for Gangwal, I guess we will have to agree to disagree. It was Gangwal who summarilly terminated 478 probationary flight attendants in the wake of 9/11 because it was cheaper than furloghing them. I don't call that integrity. It was Gangwal who in a phone conference with Wall Street analysts indicated that the company was using the events of 9/11 to reduce staffing levels and it was those events that allowed the company to do so. Again, integrity issue here. In 20 minutes, you can walk from U headquarters to the very spot a plane went into the Pentagon... this was a hometown thing... both CCY and the Pentagon are in Arlington. To use the catastrophic events in such a way is reprehensible to me. I am well aware that Wolf by and large called the shots, but Gangwal did have some say and Wolf allowed him that... not so much at other airlines but at U he did. Wolf listend to Gangwal. During the merger, Gangwal could have said "you deal with the merger and I'll run the airline and come up with plans B, C, and D." That was a serious (and perhaps fatal) disconnect in my view. They were both in on the merger and they both stood to realize a windfall with its success. They were both blind to other events within the comapny, within the route structure, and within the industry.
Gangwal also had a way of saying the wrong things to the wrong people (see my Wall Street analyst comment above) and it getting him into trouble. And even if Wolf were calling all the shots, I am reminded of a situation I was in many years ago. I accepted a job in a city I very much wanted to live, and as it turned out, I was being asked (actually told) to do some things I didn't agree with, some of which bordered on illegal and definitely unethical (lying is unethical in my view, but it went way beyond that... cheating people). I was losing sleep and my diet pretty much consisted of Tums. One day my mother called me at my office and we were talking and I started conveying my frustration over the situation and telling her some of the things I had done that I wasn't proud of. There was a pause and she said in a very low voice, "you know, your Father and I raised you better than that." That was an epiphany in my life. To keep on doing what I had been doing would be a slap in their faces because they raised me to have integrity and honesty and decency. I hung up the phone, cleaned out my office, and moved back to my hometown the next day.
You see, just because your superiors tell you to do something unethical doesn't mean you have to do it. You have choices. You can say, "I don't lie" and "I don't cheat" and "I treat people with dignity and respect." You may be out of a job but your integrity is intact. My integrety suffered a setback, but I learned from it. However, I think that was Gangwal's disconnect, and to a much, much, much larger degree is Siegel's disconnect. I don't believe Siegel set out to do things in the way he has but there is no escaping that he has done them whether they are his doing or Bronners. Gangwal could have cleaned out his office (and ultimately he did, but it was my understanding that he was pretty much shown the door by Wolf after his Wall Street comments). Siegel could have cleaned out his office.
Other than that, I agree with you almost completely.
Regards,
DCAflyer
OP
seeking the truth
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- Oct 31, 2003
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DCA & FINISH,
My intent was not to paint Gangwal as the all "Good little ceo who could do nothing wrong" and the big Wolf as the only evil one. After rereading my post I understand how that might have been interpreted. Admittedly hindsight is always 20/20 and the blame lies on both parties indeed. But we do agree to disagree.
Will management heed or continue to bleed ????
My intent was not to paint Gangwal as the all "Good little ceo who could do nothing wrong" and the big Wolf as the only evil one. After rereading my post I understand how that might have been interpreted. Admittedly hindsight is always 20/20 and the blame lies on both parties indeed. But we do agree to disagree.
Will management heed or continue to bleed ????
usfliboi
Veteran
- Aug 20, 2002
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whats amazing to me is that these three are all the same and you feel they arent . They all are extremely sharp smart ceos and because youre mad and upset with them is more than likely meaning they are doing their jobs. CUT CUT CUT BUILD BUILD BUILD! BUISNESS 101! The difference here is that Dave came in at the worst time. BUISNESS 101 guys, read the handbook. You cant teach personal touches but Dave has made great efforts to keep the group together despite what u read on here.
